A pilot social network-based HIV peer education program of MSM in Hong Kong

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While HIV among local MSM is a concern, the coverage of HIV prevention has not improved substantially. Only several hundred MSM use VCT services per year while prevention work concentrates in gay venues, though some pilot internet-based interventions exist. New means to access MSM should be developed.  Social network interventions have been used successfully in Western countries,e.g., 1-2 but not in Hong Kong. Not only more new MSM will be accessed, the strong peer influences within intimate social networks would result in higher effectiveness. This pilot study will test feasibility and means to use social networks for peer education.

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The objectives of this study are:

1) To design a structured manual-driven and theory-based peer education program for MSM;

2) To train a number of seed peer educators (SPE) to implement such a program to members of their social network (SNM);

3) To recruit 2nd generation peer educators (SGPE) from the SNM, who will be trained by the SPE to implement the structured intervention to their own SNM;

4) To evaluate the effectiveness of this program in terms of prevalence of condom use and VCT and STD examination, as compared to members of a control group in a pilot study.

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Funded by Council for the AIDS Trust Fund

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